final session of the year on a positive note one percent but overall the year is negative with my six losing twenty percent more in this race in the summer this is. a very warm welcome to you this is r.t. live from moscow i'm rule research shy tension has been escalating over the past few days following iran's threat to block a crucial oil supply route in the persian gulf tehran is currently holding large scale war games in neutral waters near the hormuz strait the us has its own naval force in the region which it says is to ensure that the passage remains open. and is not how it washington bureau now joins us live. guy thanks for coming on the program today there certainly has been harsh exchange of rhetoric between washington and tehran tell us more about that what you. well absolutely day after

day we see the degree of tension rising iranian and american warships kind of brushed shoulders earlier as u.s. ships passed the area where terror on is holding a ten day military exercise the u.s. fifth fleet said they crossed the strait of hormuz unhindered and that he was a routine passage iran's right in to cut off the strait of hormuz which is the major golf oil artery forty percent of the world's tanker shipped oil passes through that strait the u.s. said they would not tolerate any disruption of supplies which suggests that if you ran goes through with their threats we might see a full scale military showdown there for now based on the statements that we hear washington seems to think that iran is bluffing but right now you can find itself in a situation where its main source of livelihood namely oil export is in danger because of the looming sanctions and the threats that are coming from iran indicate that it's ready to take action to protect its interests if attacked it's almost sure to

retaliate right now were iran is flexing its muscle showing off its capabilities during their naval military exercises and as part of the exercise on saturday they'll fire long range missiles capable of reaching israel by the way. you talk about this threat of sanctions against iran by various european countries but what exactly all the sanctions that have triggered it wrongs threat as you said this there's a muscular posturing in the gulf. well touching upon some of the latest decisions the u.s. congress passed a bill that would dramatically complicate transactions through iran's central bank european and asian nations import iranian oil and use its central bank for their transactions president obama has yet to sign the bill and that's going to be a severe blow to the uranium economy around eighty percent of its revenues depend on crude sales e.u. ministers say. a decision on whether or not to boycott iranian oil will be made in

coming weeks the way i says all the rand has to do to avoid sanctions is to give up their nuclear program iran says they're not going to do it they're not doing anything wrong by pursuing a peaceful nuclear program for civilian purposes some experts believe cornering iran like that by sanctions creates a powder keg which could blow up at the slightest spark and the potential confrontation over the strait of hormuz can be that spark all right all of these are going to live in washington d.c. thank you all i mean time foreign affairs analyst richard hey daryn the things the u.s. should moderate. dialogue with iran. of course in every negotiation it takes two to tango so. a willingness to negotiate and to read a compromise. can be trying to resuscitate him maybe. in two thousand and nine we had the green. brokered by brazil and turkey just.

obama a few months ago and. i think just after the recent american wants to just as a sign of just. only the statement that we should do we need to engage in negotiations with iran to reduce its nuclear enrichment so i think the level of interest in. what the americans do or. feel that the west does not want to compromise with and wants to. in the. peaceful nuclear program under the auspices of the treaty i think the best solution illustrated by. step by step bringing. compromise. on every level you know there. could be and. there will be a corresponding. and unfortunately i do not see why the united states of america is

not considering this very good. has been supported by china and lot of emerging powers. business out of. the market's reaction to the whole standoff he says it's not likely to drive all prices very high for the moment but the situation in the long could benefit russia. certainly in the worst case scenario prices would go ahead in leaps and bounds but at the moment the market is not really factoring that in you've seen some incremental rises where the risk seems to be getting a bit but do you really believe this is going to lead to an all out escalation and potentially a minute where there is one silver lining in this for russia because russia or. russia school split is heavy and it's very similar. so it tends to benefit when it rains approach in question so we've seen that actually a premium for russian oil at the moment on our website r.t.

dot com you can share your opinions on the story and get involved and tell us how you think the strait of hormuz deadlock will evolve pick up the numbers matthew dot com voting here. hoff of those so far think the u.s. will use the standoff as a pretext to attack iran about a third say it won't have any immediate consequences just being the latest move in a long game of chess eleven percent think iran will teach the west a lesson by cutting off vital supplies and six percent think tehran well it's cheap it's a goal of preventing sanctions right now at r.t. dot com. and coming up later in the program here on the final countdown. when these lines of police started moving a started running towards me starting shooting towards our direction started tear gassing my cameraman with tear gas stylus answered that's when it really changed

the way we bring you the view from inside the occupy movement as we show it from a new up close and personal perspective. this is. just history in the making. testimony. ten stories that shapes two thousand and eleven on our t.v. . now eight minutes past the hour here in moscow egyptian rights groups have accused the military rulers of using what they describe as mubarak era tools of repression that's after soldiers and police raided the offices of ten nongovernmental organizations including some foreign ones more on this saudis maria financial reports. i don't thursday just carried out unprecedented raids on at least seventeen high profile human rights and pro-democracy organizations all across the country and it's been done in a very brutal and very unpleasant way policemen and soldiers swept into office into a gated people didn't let anybody you know out didn't actually let the people make

calls to their relatives and eventually seized computers and documents from the offices among those targeted organizations were the u.s. government funded national democratic institute the international republican institute whose chairman is now republican senator john mccain and freedom house so as you can see. sponsored from abroad especially for america has been targeted washington whose military aid to egypt amounts at one point three billion dollars has been very quick to react expressing its. disappointment with what happened in egypt on thursday call it highly provocative and only did to try to resolve it as soon as possible and to return the stuff that has been taken from the in jos employees the organizations themselves have also responded they've condemned the raids carried out in egypt. claiming it reminded them about tough times and egypt's former dictator hosni mubarak in egypt is going through tough times of

course these days clashes between demonstrators and police and soldiers still continued all across the country to continue and claim lives just last week it ended in the dust of cleaved at least fifteen people and these days a supreme council of military forces egypt's new authority is often criticized for being too slow and too and determined in promised democratic reforms struggling to cling to power very sensitive about any influence especially from abroad and very sensitive about control and they're trying to keep power and to control everything and of course as part of this paranoia military government might even suspect these organizations n.g.o.s sponsored from abroad of support and of sponsoring protesters all across egypt. it is more of a national reporting and i mean time foreign policy analyst dr ideal shamu believes the military government is making sure it stays in power but the people are calling

for democratic change this is part of the minute the supreme council on forces way of making sure. the you know who you should basically is molded to the do the type of government they want because that's those are the same generals by the way who worked for mubarak. but really the military has to step aside they will not give up the power of that easily but i think the egyptian people and the arabs in general have lost their fear from koran and government and they have restored of their dignity and they will not tolerate another military dictatorship in the country i think all the evidence indicates despite their sacrifices. now eleven minutes past the hour here in the russian capital a large scale and he regime marchers are being held across syria that's all amid fresh reports of violent crackdowns against protesters activists also suggest that

over a one hundred people have been killed by security forces since tuesday when the arab observers began the fact finding mission in syria's flashpoint however it's hard to verify the information coming in from the country of clashes began back in march between government forces and protesters with both sides being armed more and what's going on in syria right now i'm joined live by beirut based political analyst like the i thanks for coming on the program today there have been so many conflicting reports coming from syria do you think observers can actually help to clear up the situation. well i think they should be able to hold things out if they were allowed to be can carry their mandate we heard today the american and interfere in the process and we heard mr. secretary of the state monitors what to do and he said regardless what the conclusion of the if it doesn't

fall in the opposition then they have to go and take it to the international community obviously the. american trying to play. dirty guy in this operation they don't want to see a settlement for what is taking place in syria and they instigating in the media and actually calling in there in their. border all the opposition which has been playing with the united states and the western powers to destabilize syria if what we heard from mr for feldman is the verdict then i don't think we can to see good things coming out out of the end of the i certainly certainly where we are what we are seeing coming out of it is a constant stream of all footage of much of it amateur footage being filmed by mobile phones or a lot of it claiming to show more victims of alleged crackdowns by the government forces meantime the government forces seem to be fairly quiet with what some are

calling a ongoing propaganda war if indeed a propaganda war is ongoing who's winning it at this point. i think the observer they made some very good statement because when they came in they gave a very detailed description. of the situation and it's a perspective and they say we didn't see what they told us that there is a massacre or any severe things happening in homs and everybody. had of the mission they call them many names and they called for his ouster of the cause here we have the opposition they want to hear one thing and nothing else for that the propaganda i think is feeding itself because somebody in the west in the united states these sided they don't when the regime of bashar al assad and they want to topple the regime so every mediation. by the arab league or by any effort

inside the country the american they were not fired and today the statement from mr goldman to the foreign affairs indicated clearly what the intention of the american propaganda. as you say that america has a heavy hand in this this is what you're saying but there's been an attack on the monitoring mission in the city of homs certainly one of the flashpoints in the country who do you think could be behind it who might try to undermine the mission of the arab observers at that point i suppose to the extent of benefiting from undermining their mission. well obviously the opposition they're undermining all mission because of the people saying what they saw on the street and they said this the situation is under control and there is no severity to the situation and it's not the way how they characterize it and everybody was mad mr b. because he said that they were not happy with the head of the mission of the

observer because actually in a way supported the version of the government somebody try to blame everything when you have like. ten of thousands are paid by major satellite t.v. he's trying to instigate a propaganda against syria you're going to get. two stories but i want to know your reality from a bit i'm afraid that's all the time we have for today but many thanks for joining us here on nazi. spain's and you conservative leadership has given its civil service employees a dismal new year gift by announcing a fresh austerity package worth almost nine billion euros they joined the greeks and italians who were hit by enormous cuts and tax hikes imposed by their governments this year and two thousand and twelve promises more of the same osses are really going to go now reports on the gloomy prospects for the euro zone. the autumn in europe so the fall of several european leaders spain greece italy all of

these countries are changing leadership across a two week period but who are these new faces that help of europe's most troubled nations and will they really make things better for the people. probably not the greeks pride themselves on essentially inventing democracy back in however long ago that was too bad the man who is now being touted as the man with the plan is an economist who was appointed to rule the greek people know gordon elections there well the greek prime minister was the greek finance minister at the time but greece joined the euro so he was responsible for cooking the books to get greece in for this ever expanding empire he was rewarded by going to work at the european central bank and as soon as papen day i would mention the word referendum he was there and even if we skirt the whole issue of current governments being appointed by someone else from another country another question pops up will they be capable of doing anything different than before well the irony is of course that many of these

technocrats from. the disastrous euro project in the first place so it really is pretty annoying then out now in charge of all these countries and that doesn't go down well with the economists who saw the eurozone disaster develop from the beginning this project is doomed to failure it was always to them to fail and moreover i would have the rain and i would have a fistful crimes tribunals i would like to see some of these people sent to prison so far cutting the public sector firing tens of thousands of people and telling everyone to brace themselves for tough times ahead in the midst of raging protests unruly unemployment and mind blowing debt numbers these have been the only steps so far undertaken by european governments both old and new that's leave us give us a game and the people who think that maria monti came to help italy out of the crisis or are going to help spain are totally mistaken that those who are here position in seats of power on representing the interests of goldman sachs and other

major corporation this will ease and there is always the chance that things could get even worse there is a real possibility. in the mediterranean countries that will see govern. months well not evil and not even legitimate governments but we'll see governments overthrown i think there's also a big worry that we may well see the kind of nationalist political movements springing out of this that we thought we'd said goodbye to back in ninety forty five if the technocrats fail to reach the wreck the economies in italy greece and spain the nations where end up not only with a bleak future between the very little reason to call themselves democratic it in because go r.t. . as two thousand and twelve creeps closer we continue to look back at the stories that dominated last year this time it's the occupy movement that exposed to social and financial injustice in some of the most unexpected places.

i remember at the start of the so-called so-called arab spring we saw so many mass movements from europe to the middle east people rising up taking to the streets protesting and the question we kept asking ourselves over and over again is why not here why not in the united states i mean for years we've covered stories that touched upon social inequality economic inequality the overdue undue influence in fact that politics has been the money has in our financial system and i never thought that this kind of popular outrage would really come to the united states that it would really hit home. when the occupy wall street movement began my initial impression i have to admit it was

utter skepticism you know it sounded like some american protesters saw what was going on in the middle east and thought it would be i meet sort of symbolic way to emulate what they've seen for example into where square. one of the biggest things that really sort of woke me up as an individual was that that night in times square in a towbar this was right after the supposed to be announced raid by the mayor where about three thousand if not more protesters had gathered around security park to to defend their space and they succeeded they weren't raided and we saw literally thousands of people marching into times square which you know the physical contrast of the sort of a temple of consumerism which is times square in manhattan these flashing lights these logos these expressions of corporate power and consumer culture in stark contrast to. literally thousands of people who have gotten together to speak to

shout to feel the physical presence of of other americans who are just no longer content to sit back and watch society unfold in the direction that it's taken me. i was just feet away from the area where several police officers mountain of horseback sort of out into the crowd hurting some of the protesters seeing with my own eyes for the first time the excessive level of force. an old gentleman who looked like he was probably in his sixty's slammed down to the ground his arms and back women of all ages men of all ages carried away for doing what for sitting down on the ground and not moving or making a point quietly. standing there with my camera man with this line of police officers several hundred of them armed to the teeth you know what happens

out of sticks out a line of protesters behind me you know i thought i was there as this protected almost impartial observer there to tell the story but when these lines of police started moving at me it started moving forward towards me starting shooting towards our direction started tear gassing my cameramen was tear gassed i was injured and that's when it really changed for me there are at least a hundred in the not two hundred three hundred police officers in full riot gear as you can see advancing behind us right now on the occupy oakland movement now one of the other interesting experiences i think for me was sort of seeing the contrast between occupy wall street in new york and in oakland in oakland where there is such a radical history of active as and where the people there the protesters there were so much more outraged so much more ready for a radical fundamental change of this within this country but at the same time.

one of the experiences that really stands out to be in my mind was the day of the port shutdown on the member second you know there are thousands thousands and tens of thousands of people who were gathered who were marching around seventy to eighty is not a lot of police presence there really felt that perhaps we had turned a new chapter in this country perhaps this was going to be an opportunity for these kinds of expressions of political discontent with the sort of crackdown that we've that we've seen in the past and what happened that evening really really shook me to the core i have to say the contrast between these peaceful marches and. seeing firsthand the streets of oakland turned into something i might have seen on the news and as you can see these are marching the i.m.f. sticks their hands baton thing and i don't know if you can get any closer on that shot i think that really galvanized this country and really woke us up to our reality. the reality is that there is a lot wrong and there's

a lot that needs to be changed but instead of sitting here and inviting experts to go and talk about it we're seeing people physically participating in what democracy really should be all about. i'm an american citizen i feel that i am here to tell the stories and i have a right to tell the stories and that is part of what this country is fundamentally founded on and sort of experiencing firsthand the loss of the the inability to do anything the feeling of powerlessness and smallness. that's something that i think i'm not going to forget for quite a long time. i doubt that is the final of our report on the personal reflections from our team of international correspondents on the events that shaped two thousand and eleven do bear in mind though if you missed any of them on air you can watch them anytime you like at r.t. dot com for now though let's cross over to dimitri he joins us next with our

business update. thanks rory and maybe the holiday season but negotiators in moscow and kiev they're still working hard to secure a deal on gas ukraine estimates a pipeline system is worth twenty billion dollars and it wants an annual nine billion dollar discount on gas supplies if the two countries create a consortium to transit gas moscow is not outright rejecting the idea speaking to gas from head prime minister putin says talks must go on but assures that if you go national i ask you to continue the negotiations as ukraine will remain a strategic partner for treating gas and considering the growing demand from european consumers and also the several countries to wind down nuclear energy ukraine's pipeline system will undoubtedly remain in demand. twenty eleven has been a testing year for investors as the world economy struggled for growth stock

markets here in russia also suffered yet some sectors spectacularly bucked the trend daniel bushell looks at the rollercoaster ride of the last twelve months and what to expect in the coming years. gold has been an exceptional investment it reached all time highs of over nineteen hundred dollars per ounce in september six hundred percent in a decade but since then the price has slid back and brokers no more buying to put to fall further in twenty twelve fearing the bubble will burst. the dollar and euro remain risks switching your roubles into the greenback would have brought a small return but changing into the euro would have meant a point that the employment both in the states and the european union mean those currencies continue to be unstable. become much more reliable the credit crunch wiped out riskier lenders while the brought in

guarantees insuring all deposits up to seven hundred thousand roubles some banks now offer healthy return of over fourteen percent a year. most weeks merger of russia's stock exchanges has kept a poor twenty eleven the more six slipped eighteen percent as political uncertainty worried investors but cafe expect a strong rebound in twenty twelve as the new government settles predicting a return to previous years when markets were the world's best performing. secure the markets this hour u.s. stocks opened lower on european worries that spain's new government and veiled austerity measures and said it expects a twenty eleven budget gap of nearly eight percent. stocks are mixed as germany's finance minister ruled out a euro zone a breakup actually they ended positive the footsies are point one percent of blacks point eight percent and this is the closing picture in russia where the final

session of the year soar stocks gain a one percent of the new year holidays we look at the movers quickly energy shares are doing well financials also strong affluent is the outstanding gain adds up almost five percent as announced plans to boost passenger numbers twenty five percent next year. rory is next with a headline. is he.

a very warm welcome to you this is artsy life or mosque are your headlines now the gulf is on edge two u.s. warships so close to an iranian naval exercise try thanks to a crucial all over the toronto has been threatening to block. egypt's ruling generals who are furious of tyranny as radio station against the offices of foreign if you want to rise groups the military says are stirring up trouble. major opposition mobs.